---
title: 'Star Fox Is A New Beginning That Undermines Itself - Campaign Review'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=fOLDs1-a8X0'
video_id: 'fOLDs1-a8X0'
date: 2026-06-24
duration_sec: 526
---

# Star Fox Is A New Beginning That Undermines Itself - Campaign Review

> Source: [Star Fox Is A New Beginning That Undermines Itself - Campaign Review](https://youtube.com/watch?v=fOLDs1-a8X0)

## Summary

Star Fox

## Transcript

There's a reason Nintendo keeps remaking
Star Fox 64. The N64 iteration of the
rail shooter, at the time the second
Star Fox release, remains the apex of
the franchise, a genuinely fantastic
game that still holds up and stands the
test of time. Subsequent sequels that
have attempted to recapture the magic
have floundered by comparison. This
latest iteration, simply titled Star Fox
for what I can only assume is meant to
be a soft reboot, plays just as great as
you remember and even looks better. But
if you've already played Star Fox 64 in
any iteration, it will be hard to shake
the feeling of deja vu.
Atmospheric entry complete. Extend the
wings. For the uninitiated, or perhaps
those who just learned about ultra cool
guy Fox Mloud from his spotlight
stealing cameo in the Mario Galaxy
movie, Star Fox takes place in a galaxy
called the Lilacat system, composed of
anthropomorphic animals with futuristic
space travel technology. Star Fox is a
group of well-funded fighter jock
mercenaries who are regularly called
upon by a military general, a dog named
Pepper, to assist their space combat
operations. As established in an opening
cutscene some years ago, Fox's father,
James Mloud, was in route to investigate
questionable activity on a planet named
Venom when his wingmate Pigma betrayed
him to the mad scientist Andros. James
was lost. his trusty wingman Pepe
escaped and Andros kept quietly
assembling his army for an invasion of
the rest of the Lilat system. That
sequence establishes one of the major
new features of this remake. Fully
animated cutscenes, and to their credit,
these are very well-made sequences. The
aerial stunts look cool while staying
true to the original spirit were needed,
and the voice acting has been updated to
facilitate the expanded scope. The more
realistic character designs were
divisive when shown off earlier this
year, but I felt fine with them from the
beginning, and after spending some time
seeing them animated in cutscenes, I've
come to really appreciate the look.
Their faces are nicely expressive, and
textures like fur give them a sense of
realism while still staying in the
fantastical world of space animals. The
vast majority of the cut scenes take
place aboard their docking ship, The
Great Fox, as they discuss strategy, but
the characters are still given lots of
characterization in their movements and
gestures to express their perspectives
and personalities. For example, Falco
rolls his eyes a lot because he is above
all kind of a jerk.
>> Some of your crew is worth it anyway. A
similarly heightened level of visual
fidelity is present in the stages
themselves, which look recognizable to
their N64 counterparts without feeling
too beholden to their jagged edges and
geometry. While all the stages look
great, the upgraded style is most
impressive when it shows off new
flourishes that weren't available in the
original, like the lighting effects of
your lasers reflecting off the surfaces
and illuminating dark caves. Star Fox 64
always excelled at stage variety, but
this remake accentuates it by making
each stage appear vastly different from
the rest. I especially loved revisiting
the stages that are major departures
from the others. Revisiting all the
areas takes at least a few runs because
of how the stage layout has worked since
the original. One of the coolest aspects
of Star Fox 64, and again here, is the
ability to carve your way from one side
of the galaxy to another in a relatively
free form fashion, completing optional
objectives. In broad terms, you can see
the three paths as easy, medium, and
hard, but you aren't limited to one
track. If you know how to find your way,
you can easily hop between paths
throughout. So, you aren't committed to
only staying on one difficulty track.
Completing a hidden objective that opens
the harder path will always let you
switch to the easier one. But if you
only complete the easier objective, you
can't switch to the harder path. In the
original Star Fox 64, this was presented
rather plainly with a blue, yellow, or
red line showing where you can go. In
this version, it's given a good deal
more panache, thanks again to the new
extended cutscenes. Rather than simply
present you with a choice of locations
for your next mission, each mission
starts with General Pepper debriefing
from the last mission and explaining the
strategic importance of both next
possible locations. One might have a
suspected bioweapon while the other is
an outpost under attack. In each case,
Pepper outlines why Star Fox is the best
or perhaps only available force to
complete this mission. And since there's
some overlap as you could approach a
planet from different directions, it's
particularly impressive how these
cutscenes stitch different pieces
together without feeling noticeably
disjointed.
>> You should neutralize the facility and
destroy that weapon before it's deployed
against us.
>> We'll take it under advisement, General.
>> These all lead to the same outcome. Of
course, you're ultimately headed toward
Venom to take on Andros no matter what,
and it doesn't make a difference in the
end whether you went to Sector X or
Solar, but it does a good job of tying
the journey together and giving each
mission an appropriate amount of weight.
Sometimes I even felt bad abandoning one
planet in Ne for another, even knowing
that it doesn't have any impact. The
extended cutscenes also help define the
characters' relationships with each
other and with General Pepper. Felco has
always been portrayed as a cocky hot
shot, but here we get to see him slowly
warming to Fox's leadership. Pepe is the
assured veteran who trusts Fox will come
into his own as a leader. We even get
some insight about why the team keeps
Slippy around as the cut scenes sell him
as a machinist wonder kind who's always
two steps ahead in anticipating their
equipment needs. I've been developing a
prototype submersible. It's exactly what
we need for this sort of mission.
>> And Fox, for the most part, is played as
the cool Han Solo type, a mercenary
needing General Pepper to pay for their
valuable services, even if he's
obviously going to do the heroic thing
regardless. Wayfinding to new paths is a
little easier this time around, too.
Dialogue will drop hints about what to
do to open new paths without being
overly on the nose or spelling it out
for you. If you miss an optional
objective, it's easier to restart a
stage from the beginning or from your
most recent checkpoint. And doing so
doesn't even cost you a life or
eliminate your laser upgrades or bombs.
You can even entirely complete a stage,
see where it leads, and then go back and
do it again immediately to try for
another way. That said, I was surprised
that each run through the Lilat system
is treated as its own distinct game
progression, like the original. That
means that once you finish the game,
you'll need to start a new on Corneria
and cut your path through from the
beginning. This is true to the original,
and I don't mind the faithfulness to a
point, but for returning fans who
already know their way around, it would
have been nice to have the option to
track which paths you've already opened
and let you jump back to planets,
eventually creating a fully filled out
star map. And while the updated visuals
are often gorgeous, they do come with
some trade-offs that take getting used
to. For one thing, your targets are a
lot less obvious with much more
happening on screen visually, so it's
easier to miss a flyer who gets away. In
boss battles, weak points are less
obvious than the glowing vulnerabilities
of the original, and they don't flash as
brightly when you land a successful hit
to let you know that you're doing
damage. And with the higher fidelity
making everything look much more like it
has weight and bulk. It's a little
strange when a capital warship in Area 6
explodes like an empty cardboard box.
>> Curse you, Star Fox.
>> Star Fox is a remake, but also appears
to be an attempt at a reset. The
franchise has never really found its
footing despite clearly having a lot of
love from Nintendo. This story has
always felt like a starting point,
establishing the characters and hinting
at their backstory. So altogether, this
remake may be the best possible way to
give the series a fresh start. At the
same time, the original still holds up
very well. And if you have Switch online
with the expansion pass, you can already
play it. That makes this hard to
recommend, which is a shame. If Nintendo
means this to be a new beginning for
Star Fox, retreading familiar ground
undermines the effort.